Bosque del Cerro Ojo de Agua, Cabricán, Quetzaltenango

Philip Ransley committee did a marvellous job….it informs the need to reform the National Police Service, to move it from a police force to police service, a service responsive to those that are served…..(sic).¹¹⁶

The above statement perhaps suggests that one of the most important processes in the setting of Kenya’s post 2007 police reform agenda is the report of the Task Force of Police Reform, popularly known as the

113 ‘Several administration policemen were killed in Nyanza province for being suspected PNU agents, an allegation the PNU and the government denied, saying that the officers had been deployed to oversee security in the handling of electoral documents’, (Kriegler, 2008, pp., p.66)

114 See Section 3.4

115 See Chapter Six for further discussions on citizen participation.

116 Interview with K-Int1

Ransley Report. While the Ransley committee was not a direct outcome of the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation process, it nevertheless was constituted as part as agenda four¹¹⁷ and therefore directly draws from agenda four in terms of laying the foundation for institutional reforms within the police service.

The report by far remains the most oft referred process in the discourse of police reform process in Kenya. Literature on police reform in Kenya considers the report as a point of departure from previous attempts at reforming the police. Works for example Furuzawa (2011) amongst others cite the report as the basis of reforming the police sector in Kenya. This position is also reflected in the interviews conducted across Kenya including interviews with NPSC, IPOA, Ombudsman and KNCHR.

In the wake of pressure to kick-start the agenda for reforms, particularly police reform, President Kibaki appointed the Ransley Taskforce on May 8, 2009 with the mandate to examine, among other issues, existing policies and institutional structures of the police, and to recommend comprehensive reforms that would enhance effectiveness, professionalism and accountability in the police services (GoK, 2009, p.ii).

The taskforce submitted its interim report on August 26, 2009 detailing issues that required immediate attention in the short term and the final report on November 3, 2009 making recommendations for short, medium and long-term reform priorities.

Like the Waki report, the report was a first in its own right in setting agenda for police reforms. For the first time in the history of the republic the team went throughout the country and collected views from the police themselves and members of the public and other agencies regarding what was really required in terms of driving the reform agenda within the police sector.¹¹⁸ It also did benchmark studies in order to borrow from the best policing practices around the world. The Task Force visited police services in Botswana, United Kingdom and Sweden (GoK, 2009, p.vi).

117 Interview with K-Int2

118 Interview with K-Int2

These activities culminated into a 200 plus (sic) recommendations that were made which also resulted in what we call Police Reforms Implementation Committee (PRIC).¹¹⁹ PRIC together with Internal Security Ministry and other stakeholders then drafted legislation that brought in all the various organs that are now involved in the police sector, that is; the National Police Service, the National Police Service Commission, and the Independent Oversight Authority.

It is the Ransley recommendations that form the basis of analysis of the police reform process in Kenya. Chapter four analyses the priorities and discourses around the reform initiatives in general as proposed by the Ransley team. This is further developed in Chapter Six, with a specific focus on areas for which reforms are to lead to results for Kenyans as per the categorisation Ransley team, that is (i) police image accountability and partnerships( ii) professionalism, terms and conditions of service (iii)operational preparedness, tooling and logistical capacity, and (iv) Institutional, policy and legal reforms.¹²⁰ While these reform areas were overly ambitious and repetitive, the recommendations are reviewed by the researcher for analytical and conceptual clarity.

3.7 Conclusion

This chapter has focussed on agenda setting processes in relation to the post 2007 reform agenda in Kenya. The discussions have revolved around how issues are prioritised by governments, with the view to deepening our understanding on why comprehensive police reform agenda was not a priority to the Kenyan government until after the 2007 post-election violence. In order to achieve this, a number of agenda setting theories have been explored. In explaining the Kenyan context however, Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Theory provided a more robust theory in explaining the processes in Kenya.

119 Interview with K-Int2

120 See GoK (2009, pp., p.218-219)

Kingdon’s framework has provided the platform on which understanding the agenda setting of Kenya police reform process is understood. What is important is that the implementation process of the reform agenda is largely influenced by how the agendas are set. The chapter concludes by exploring key processes that set the tempo for reforms in Kenya. The analyses in subsequent chapters draw from these processes.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE POLICE REFORM PROCESS IN KENYA 2008-2014

THE POLICE REFORM PROCESS IN KENYA 2008-2014

4.1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on the implementation of the post 2007/8 police reform agenda in Kenya as analysed in chapter three. Specifically, the objective of police reform was to review the existing policies, institutional structures of the police, and undertake comprehensive reforms that would enhance effectiveness, professionalism and accountability in the police service. To achieve this objective, the Ransley Report (GoK, 2009) considered various proposals and processes and came up with four main reform areas, namely; (1) police image, accountability and partnerships;

(2) professionalism, terms and conditions of service; (3) operational preparedness, tooling and logistical capacity; and (4) Institutional, policy and legal reforms that were eventually taken up as the core of the police reform process in Kenya.

Against the backdrop of the reform mandate stated above, this chapter discusses the contribution of the Kenyan local actors¹²¹ to the process, and explores the challenges associated with the process and how stakeholders responded to these challenges. These mainly relate to the first three secondary questions outlined in chapter one, thus, what were the security sector reform priorities in Kenya before and after the 2007-2008 post-election violence? What is the contribution of local actors to police reform and wider SSR processes in Kenya? How have stakeholders responded to challenges and deficiencies of SSR in Kenya?

The aim here is therefore to critically examine and analyse the implementation of the police reform process that emerged after the 2007 post-election violence. The analysis draws largely from personal interviews and secondary data sources.

121 The study distinguishes between state and non-state actors with emphasis on civil society groups in the case of the latter.

To achieve this aim, the chapter adopts multi-level (macro-meso-micro) approach (Holland, 2007) as shown on Figure 2 below. The approach not only helps clarify multiple activities and the impacts of decisions of various stakeholders in the reform process, but also provides an effective framework for detailed analysis of the police reform process from the year 2008. In short, it facilitates process-tracing analysis of the police reform within the Kenyan context, while at the same time emphasizing on the interrelatedness of the three levels. Previous studies, for example, Police Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Wisler, 2007) and recently, Globalisation, Police Reform and Development (Ellison and Pino, 2012 ) have adopted this approach in analysing police reform process.

Figure 2: Post 2008 Police Implementation Process

Source: Adapted from (Holland, 2007, Ellison and Pino, 2012 )

This chapter is divided into five sections. Section 4.1 introduces the chapter and states the mandate from which the chapter examines the Kenyan police reform process. Section 4.2 looks at the macro-analysis level, focussing on the reform at the state level with emphasis on

decisions, activities and drivers of the reform process and how these filtered into the lower levels. It also considers the unique context, political-institutional culture, in which the police reform process takes place.

Section 4.3 provides meso-level analysis focusing on stakeholder analysis and providing an in-depth institutional analysis of the process. Section 4.4 presents the micro-analysis, focusing on the impact of reform within the police service, analyses the reaction of the police towards the reform process handed down to the police from the macro and meso levels. It also considers police community relations and sets the stage for the analysis of chapter six of the thesis. Section 4.5 draws the main conclusions of the chapter.

4.2 Macro Analysis: Understanding the Country and Police